Lufthansa lease in NAIA extended

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May 14, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s biggest aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) provider has agreed to a new contract to extend lease at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), ending nearly a year of uncertainty about its future in Manila.

MRO giant Lufthansa Technik Philippines (LTP) is keeping its 226,000-square meter facility in NAIA, backed by a new deal with the airport’s operator New NAIA Infrastructure Corp. (NNIC).

MacroAsia Corp., which owns 49 percent of LTP, informed shareholders that LTP has reached a lease contract with NNIC, concluding almost a year of negotiations.

The signing ended months of speculation about the future of LTP in NAIA, especially as airport rates have gone up since NNIC took over in 2024. Under a privately operated NAIA, locators are charged P710 per square meter monthly for lease.

At that amount, NNIC can collect as much as P160 million monthly from LTP. The difference is extreme when compared to LTP’s previous lease of just P14 million a month.

However, the lease expired in 2025 after 25 years, and LTP was left with either negotiating a new contract or packing up operations in NAIA.

In the absence of a new lease, there was the possibility that LTP may simply walk away, leaving close to 3,200 Filipinos jobless and reducing NAIA’s competitive advantage as an aviation hub.

Had LTP exited NAIA, it would have taken with it Manila’s capability to offer MRO services to Airbus A320s, A330s, A340s, A380s and Boeing 777s.

In spite of the positive development on the MRO side, MacroAsia is enduring the pinch of higher costs. MacroAsia’s net income sank by 59 percent to P129 million in the three months to March, from P313.9 million a year ago.

Revenue went up by 12 percent to P2.63 billion, but expenses also surged by 13 percent to P2.05 billion. The bigger challenge for MacroAsia was its declining share in associates, dropping by 68 percent to P79 million in the first quarter, from P166.9 million.

In LTP, MacroAsia booked only P53.8 million in equity, down by 74 percent from P209 million, as the unit spent more to cover price hikes imposed by NNIC.

Still, MacroAsia’s core business of aviation support remains intact, posting double-digit growth in the revenue performance of in-flight catering and ground handling.